Since there was none that dared to say a word, but all merely gaped and gaped in stupid bewilderment, the most momentous question in the history of the Umbaddu had apparently been decided.
CHAPTER III
A Daughter of the Cave
Ru the Sparrow-Hearted did not remain to hear Grumgra's final words. Hurt in a manner that he himself could hardly understand, he shambled away into the farther darkness, picking his course along winding, coal-black passages with a certainty that only perfect familiarity could have made possible.
At length, out of the dusky distance, there shone a feeble light, flickering uncannily as a phantom. Gradually it brightened, until by the dim radiance Ru could distinguish the curving low-roofed outlines of the cavern, whose walls were irregular and misshapen as though carved by some egregious blunder of nature. But he kept on without paying any heed to those well-known formations; and finally, after rounding a sudden turn, he found himself face to face with a log fire—a much smaller fire than that at the farther end of the cavern, and yet large enough to shed a comfortable light and warmth.
With a thankful sigh, Ru flung himself down into a little hollow in the rock across from the fire. And there, curled up like a cat basking in the sunlight, he lay motionless for many minutes, staring with wide, contemplative eyes into the writhing flames.
Strange thoughts kept trailing through his mind—thoughts that stung and tortured and would leave him no peace. Why must he always call forth his people's raillery and jests? Was it only because his limbs were small and his eyes were gray? Had he not done that which none of them could do? Had he not, as the reward of many days of labor, hewed out this hollow in the cavern wall, where he might lie in comfort while his tribesmen lay on the rocky floor? And had he not built his own fire, and even made a chimney in the rock above, that he might have warmth and light while his fellows had only the dark and cold? And had he not made a club more powerful than any other of its size, by tipping it with flint while they used only wood? And had he not shaped and sharpened his flint knives and cleavers till they worked twice as easily as those his tribesmen used? And was he not even now planning that which no man had planned before—a weapon that would strike like lightning, and slay at a great distance?
As the thought of the new weapon came into his mind, Ru reached meditatively for a long, slender shaft of wood that lay concealed in a crevice between two rocks. It was little more than the thin, wiry trunk of a young tree, denuded of branches and leaves; but a crude perforation at each extremity showed the clear mark of human workmanship; and the dried tendrils of a fibrous plant, stretched loosely between the two ends of the shaft, gave evidence of what the young artizan was attempting.
Forgetting his resentment at the injustice of his tribe, Ru began to apply himself to his invention. First he stood with one end of the shaft pressed against the cavern floor, and strained and pushed with his right hand until the wood was bent outward in a wide curve; then he strained and pulled with his left to draw the tendril of the plant tightly from end to end of the shaft.
He had almost succeeded, when the tendril snapped and the wood shot out and straightened with a force that sent him reeling against the cavern wall.